גראַמאַ for president  When an ally is not a friend: Saudi Arabia. Of 19 terrorist hijackers in the 9/11 atrocity, 15 were citizens of Saudi Arabia, where violent anti-Americanism was legally preached, taught and incited in a kingdom whose medieval government strictly controls religion. A reasonable observation is that the attacks were fully condoned. It also is a fact that at the time, the American president and family were close friends with Saudi royalty. Anyone who can’t draw conclusions needs a basic course in logic: whatever do they teach them in the schools these days.  Pathetic stone-age Afghanistan oughtn’t have been the only target in the response of furious vengeance that follows. Now the president has vetoed a bill allowing American victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabia: having overridden the veto the Senate is having second thoughts lest foreign countries sue American service members; an interesting twist in tangled international relations.  Wh...

This morning, Thursday, we are in Pensacola, a motel on Palafox downtown. The pastor’s graveside service for Jim and his family was kind, loving, assuring and gentle, as much so as in any packed church. I was encouraged by the minister, and moved by James’ testimony about his dad as a tremendously loved man whose love for his family was extraordinary. I’m so glad we came over.   Jim I remember as a lanky blond teenage boy with a crush on my cousin, who would arrive at my grandparents house, this would have been in the middle or late 1960s, and so quiet and shy that he would sit in a corner chair of the living room and read while family chatter was going on. Years later after they married, I remember a new car, her saying they’d ordered a stick shift because “it would be cheaper to get it fixed,” and that the car had no hubcaps because it would be quicker to change a flat tire. With my orientation toward cars, I saw in fact a very hot machine, likely with the hottest V8 engi...

A morning but for heat and humidity we’d have coffee on 7H porch instead of inside looking out. Not so much a spectacular sunrising as taking in this speck of creation’s wonder in our millisecond of Time that "was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be." And we used to finish in Anglican Chant, “world without end Amen” but's no longer so evident past eighty as past eight.  Do I remember passing eight? That summer my mother and I boarded the train at the L&N depot on Alcaniz in Pensacola, changed trains in Montgomery, on to Washington, DC for several days including the zoo where I saw my first tarantula, step by step to the top of the Washington Monument and looked around, climbed into the topmost level of the capitol dome where visitors no longer are allowed. Thence to New London, Connecticut to see my father, who was in maritime service officer school, where memories include standing on a bridge and watching a diesel submarine pass under us as a sailor on t...

Jean Shepard died this week, about my age, she was a favorite whom I saw on stage with a group of Grand Ole Opry singers, including Webb Pierce, Ira and Charlie the Louvin Brothers and others at Alachua High School on University Avenue in Gainesville my junior or senior year at Florida. 1955 or 1956 I reckon, could have been 1957, but I think it was during the fall semester, and I went with a friend who loved country music as much as I did.  Introduced as “Little Jeannie Shepard,” she was feisty, small, a cute little blonde girl I could have had a crush on, had a wonderful clear voice for the traditional hillbilly music she sang. She was a first or early woman country music star, determined to succeed, as said in a quote, “Weren’t nothing going to stop me” and by golly nothin’ did’n stop her neither. That was a big night in Gainesville, including I think also Hawkshaw Hawkins (whom Jeannie Shepard married), Little Jimmie Dickens, and Ernest Tubb singing in his re...

Okay, I have this bad habit that I meant to blog about this morning, but I can’t remember what it is, accordingly nothing to say. Making fun of me? Blessed and fortunate as I, you’ll get here. Robert is in Gainesville at Shands with Cindy, who when he called last night was back in the ICU. I know Robert is in indescribable agony with his daughter’s major health issue, and he and Cindy are never out of my thought and prayer. We won’t meet behind Cove School (HNES) to walk, so I’ll walk with Linda. Easy to measure: one lap round the underground garage below is quarter mile, plus the Health tab on my iPhone keeps tabs on me. Garage not as interesting as walking round Massalina Bayou or along the Bay at EastBeachDrive, but healthy enough. If I can walk and chew gum at the same time, I may be able to have a “car project” such as count Lexus cars, or Camry, Mercedes, Cadillacs, Chevrolets. I do know there’s one Pontiac in the garage, two Mercury cars, no Oldsmobile.  Ship le...

Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida, Sunday, 25 September 2016. Proper 21C. Luke 16:19-26. The Rev. Tom Weller Luke 16:19-26 Jesus said, "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dog would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hell, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, `Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.' But Abraham said, `Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he ...

It’s all good, including, if it defies convention and shows up on blog, the American Typewriter font sporting lovely lower case g with quail feather. Beyond that, today’s post will include, later this afternoon, this morning’s sermon, to which I am about to cut here and turn. Who doesn’t like it, let’s see bumble competently through today’s atrociously threatening dominical parable, of which more later - - -  While Linda went to have a prescription filled yesterday afternoon, yes life as normal, doctor’s orders, I watched (top pic) a tug push two barges and little front pointy thing unusually close to 7H, appearing to have cut inside the red navigation buoys, but surely not Interesting weather last evening. Toward sunset I snapped pics of beautiful clouds gathering, representation here then came inside and sat down. A few minutes later, thinking I hear John moving furniture around in the PH above, I glance up into total darkness outside and one of the c...

May Kase Pelicans are more fascinating because they are large birds — seagulls are small — also pelican’s primordial look that calls up pterodactyls of our Cove School days. For those of us who were there, the wonderful dinosaur display we created in our classroom that year, memory floods back. Ship arriving, two tugs standing by So, what am I learning, what did I learn this week. Over the past month, in fact, since August 22. Something about mortality, that we are mortal, when we are gone we’re gone and there’s no way back except in the memories of those who love us. Q. Why do we pray for the dead? A. We pray for them, because we still hold them in our  love, and because we trust that in God's presence those  who have chosen to serve him will grow in his love, until  they see him as he is. My earliest awareness, told here before, I'm standing at the back screen door, it would have been 1938 and I’m three years old, standing beside as my mother cries ...

We thought Linda would be discharged Thursday, but late in day the hospital physician then neurologist came in with test results reporting that, beyond TIA, the MRI shows brain infarction, a stroke; and further, must stay a second night as echocardiogram results not in. Now Friday morning's  early indication is normal echo and home to 7H hopefully this morning. Fortunately, blessedly, no symptoms remain, and both physicians said she can return to perfectly normal living, Plavix replacing aspirin. Physician said all this excitement is not abnormal with aging; so along with eighty, and of course we knew that, know that, relearn it anew day by day. It’s just that when you get there you realize that it hadn't really crossed your mind that it would actually happen to yourself. When it’s yourself, truth lags behind, never quite catches up.  Looking back and realizing that you ran too fast, if only you had limped along, the race wouldn't be nearly over. Crossing the finish...

We’re having coffee. Grateful, and it’s coffee, black, but/and takes me back — to that day about 1971 when I reported in as CDO at a Naval installation Sunday morning to Monday morning, went to the giant urn for coffee and found it was the last gallon or so of what the steward had made for the admiral on Friday morning. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, grateful then and grateful now. For life & a cuppa. Linda says she did not sleep, I totally zonked out from 11:50 pm to 0455 hours (more Navy talk). She seems to have had a mild TIA, symptoms lasted about half an hour last evening from just as we were leaving for church about 5:05 until after we checked in at the ER fifteen minutes later, quickly clearing and going asymptomatic. Many tests last evening, blood draw about 2:30 am that I slept through, and now apparently a full morning of tests ahead. Sudden, unexpected, overrides plans, takes charge of life, instills the fear of God, … Being present again so soon in the s...

Dozen pelicans in the smooth, flat Bay just below.  Arrived from the west, they’ll float and splash a bit then take off for wherever they spend the day fishing. Back by 7H this evening headed west for overnight, why do they do that? IDK, instinct? Here’s the gospel for Sunday, another rich man parable in Luke 16, setting up the congregation for a stewardship sermon, but which is not going to happen. The prescribed lectionary text is Luke 16:19-31. Cutting out later rationalizing by the Church to warn what awaits those who doubt the resurrection doctrine, here is just the parable that some scholars say Jesus may actually have told: 19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: 20 and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores...